Introduction to MythTV

This is an open-sourced program that runs on a Linux operating system and a PC based computer. I am not a linux expert or guru but with a basic system knowledge and some time you can get this program running with a TV and a DTV card to watch and record television with some other TIVO like features and more.

So what are the benefits of watching TV using a computer?

You can record programs to a hard disk and watch them later (skipping the commercials), pause live TV (if you get a phone call), archive recordings to DVD and so much more.

TIVO is a very popular US device that provides many of these type of features, however additionally to the above Mythtv is open-source so people have made additional plug-in options. Some of these include modules to view the local weather, browse the web, get news and other feeds, store and play music and even use voip phones like skype through the system and it’s network connection. It truly becomes a flexible media system

You can also link multiple systems together on a home network and watch various things in different places in your house and share media to your family home through the system.

Probably more than you need to know at the moment, the reason your here is to get the easiest way to make your own PVR (Personal Video Recorder)

MythTV works in two main parts, the back-end and front-end.

• The Back-end is the engine that does recording and storage of the programs and holds all the data. It could be called a server as it provides all the back-end-services to the system.
• The Front-end is the controlling systems and viewing portal to the media and services. This part lets you flag programs to record, play and watch live and recorded programs and interact with the system.

For a big home system you may want to run this on multiple computers on a network, even having multiple front-ends to do that task in various places at the same time. This can be extended and done later, for this example I am going to deliver MythTV on one decent computer and running both the Back-end system and Front-end services at a reasonable price and as simple as possible.

MythTV and all of the information about it can be found at MythTV.org but for most people you will find it confusing to say the least. This is a program that requires a computer, extra hardware and it runs on a Linux operating system.

Linux comes in a variety of flavors and versions, like Windows has 98, XP, Vista etc, so does Linux have Red Hat, Free BSD and many many others. If you know linux you probably wont get much from my article, but you will know which you may prefer to use for this project, for the rest of you however we are going to select Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is a version of linux that is quite user friendly and installs easily. You can get it and a lot of information from here if you want to start from scratch if course, but I have one more trick up my sleeve before we begin.

MythBuntu is a pre-configured version of the two, an Operating system with a ready-to-go version of Mythtv. It comes as a complete file download ready to put on a CD and use as a boot disk to start and configure a new computer.

We will be getting the Mythbuntu from here as an ISO image, a ready to make into a CD image that most computers can download and create.

Yes, we already are on the weird-naming of things and it may be getting confusing so to recap.

We are going to setup a blank/new computer to run MythTV on a Linux operating system called Ubuntu, and it will be good, and hopefully (maybe 7 days) we can rest and enjoy, and it will be called Mythbuntu.

Next Article: Selecting the Hardware